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my friday night began on a bench outside of the sears at the town mall. i ate a cold soft pretzel with honey mustard and worked on my computer while eggboy picked out some birthday tools with his family, because is there any better way to spend a friday night?

i should mention that our town mall is really great and carpeted and has an entire cowboy boot store.

we had plans to see the new hunger games after, and maybe eat a slice of pizza for pizza night, but by the time i could wind my way through the fleece pajama section to find the eggs, eggboy was on his way to the parking lot to revisit tommy the turkey and two kinds of stuffing in the worst way possible. nooooo!!!

three bottles of gatorade, a lot of episodes of the office, and a couple of saltines later, he is finally feeling well enough to fold laundry and stomach some toast. oy vey. poor guy. luckily, my weekend to-do list only consisted of finishing my gingerbread farm and making these gingerbread terrariums, so i was on hand to make tea and toast at a moment's notice. and ok, i might have watched a lot of the office too, which i consider a triumph because for the longest time i just didn't get that show and i felt like such a loser about it, but now i really like it. (does anyone care? no? ok.)

in other news, which probably should have come before news of barf: eggboy is 28!!!! and his dad, who also had a birthday this weekend, is, um, another year older!! we celebrated with a nice low-key brunch. biscuits, eggs, and bacon for us, a little plate of saltines for him. and then i made sarah's fantastic gingerbreadfor a cake because making a gingerbread farm really makes you crave gingerbread--actual gingerbread, not rock-hard gingerbread walls and roofs. i frosted one layer and slapped it on my new cake stand, and then crumbled up the other layer to use as the "dirt" in these edible terrariums!

i can't take any credit for the brilliant idea to make an edible terrarium. i havegeordanto thank for that! the gingerbread and coconut "snow" put a wintery vibe on these, but feel free to use chocolate cake or any other dark cake for the dirt. and go wild with frosting flavors and other decorative goodies! part of me is really tempted to make my terrariums flood with a monsoon of milkshake or hot chocolate...

crumble up the cake into the bottom of the jars to form an even layer and pat it down gently. top with a blob of frosting (it's easiest to use a piping bag for this). top with a thin layer of coconut or ground pretzels, and then use tweezers to position your plants and other decorations.

to make the marzipan succulents, roll out the marzipan and use small cookie cutters or a knife to cut out little ovals or hearts and then smoosh them together to form a little flower.